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- 1000 until a heavy burr/ once per side
- 1000 until light burr/ 2 times per side, and then some stropping strokes
- 3 draws through wood and cork to knock off the burr
- 4000 was the same
- Same wood/cork de-burr
- 8000 on right face for 5 strokes and 2 stropping strokes on left side
- Both sides on natural stone until could feel good suction
- Wood and cork again

It seems very sharp now. I will report back on how well it holds this new edge.

Finishing with the 4000 grit stone may help. Finishing with too fine of a stone on certain steels with some heat treatments will cause them to loose their edge quicker than normal. Mess with it and see if it helps.

Alright so I used this knife tonight to cut up a bunch of onions and it was most definitely better than before. It still loses it super keen edge quite quickly but is now retaining a much better one than before. Next touch up I will take Devin's advice and not go to too high a grit.

So then my question now, is it normal for CPM154 steel to drop to about 70% sharpness after use? I have never had any experience with this steel before.

I sharpened up mine today and noticed that it holds on to a burr/wire edge tenaciously. Also, in my past experience with powdered steels they do loose that super keenness relatively quickly but hold onto a good useable edge for what seems like ages. Jury is still out though on this one as its not my go to knife for heavy production but rather for more detailed work so it doesn't take a beating. Time will tell.

This time around I took it to king 6k. Which is kind of my baseline stone to get a feel for what a steel likes. The last time I took it up to the 10k that Dave used to sell and it kept a good edge for a good bit. I too am still trying to find the sweet spot for this one. I have noticed, given the flexibility of the knife, and probably at the edge as well given its thinness light pressure and patience is a must.

I have noticed the same behavior that K-Fed mentioned with PM steels (sg2, CPM154, ZDP189, S30V), all dropping that initial hair-popping edge just as fast (sometimes faster) than good simple carbon, but that "OK" 80% or so edge will last FOREVER.

Getting the most out of steels like these is really a (I think fun) challenge. Like anything, it all comes down to learning the characteristics of the steel, and paying attention to what you do/ how it affects the edge and edge retention.

As I mentioned before, I've found that lowering the overall angle helps as the steel just doesn't seem to support a super acute primary angle. You can also mess around with compound angles where by you lay the first bevel at an angle that is too small for the steel and then go back and put a large angle bevel on the egde of it. I do this on both sides with my SG2 knives and it works well. The angles are not as high as Jon shows that he uses for a 'micro bevel' but they are higher than I would normally sharpen other knives at. This way the fine edge gets a bit more support, but you don't have the higher resistance to cuts like you would normally get if your whole bevel was set at that more obtuse angle.

You also don't necessarily have to "stop" at lower grits; just spend less and less time on the finer grits so that you don't completely remove all of the teeth from the lower grits. A polished toothy is a beautiful oxymoron.